4 Kickstarter Projects For New Media Artists

Don’t get me wrong. There are many things on Kickstarter that I would not spend my hard-earned pennies on. When browsing through the unfunded projects with only a week or so left to raise money, I am not surprised that some have lower than 10 percent funding. However, with the constant flood of new projects, there are many Kickstarter campaigns running out of time that, as a new media artist, could benefit you and your work if they are successfully funded. For every completely insane project, there are several inventions, films and collaborations that could potentially change how the public and the artists within it view the new media platform.

The MoveeGo Kickstarter campaign is seeking funding to support a set of portable camera rigs that are surprisingly cheap. MoveeGo claims that they are able to keep prices so low because each rig is created “like IKEA but for camera accessories.” Essentially, each rig comes with all the parts and only requires that you assemble them. MoveeGo currently supports two rigs, which include a small camera stabilizer and a small camera slider for tracking shots and further stabilization.

YouTube artists and filmmakers understand the importance of professional quality production as well as maintaining an independent budget. With the sliding stabilizer retailing at $79.95 and the portable stabilizer retailing at $69.95, both camera rigs are perfect for any new media filmmakers on a budget.

Ghost Poké Zine creator Jordan Rosenberg is an illustrator and graphic designer who started this Kickstarter project in order to print color copies of this Pokémon themed publication. For many new media illustrators and artists, inspiration can be found from other illustrator’s blogs, sites and zines. Ghost PokéZine is taking the work of many illustrators who have received their start from digital media and is channeling it towards a game and franchise that at some point inspired all of us.

The Tube Open Movie Kickstarter describes the film as; “the experimental production of a 3D animated short about the dream and failure and achievement of immortality. It’s also a love letter to free software and open culture that marks their convergence with independent filmmaking.”

The team developing Tube are also working on creating open sourced tools that future animators can use to make their own independent 3D features. The film, if funded, will ideally be released with this set of tools, showing that an independent animated feature can be made by anyone regardless of budget. This project has much more behind it than just an animated film; the future of user generated animation software also hangs in the balance as the URCHIN animation group seeks funding for this project.

World Media Now trains global citizens in the basics of journalism so that they will be able to tell their stories, regardless of their position in the world. The World Media Now magazine offers readers a look into the lives of people who have stories to tell around the world, but are rarely able to tell them.

With this promise to bring readers engaging stories from people around the world, World Media Now also trains individuals who are reporting to uphold journalistic standards.

The Kickstarter page details the training and reporting that WMN imparts on each of their global citizen reporters. “Using proprietary curriculum, WMN pairs professional journalists with citizens around the globe to train them in writing, interviewing, source finding, ethics and digital journalism. Each “citizen journalist,(we recruit them through partnerships with local and global NGO’s) receives a “Newsroom in a Backpack,” – tech tools appropriate to their country’s technical grid to transmit media to our semantic content management system. We’ve started training programs in South Sudan and Nigeria.”

As new media allows for citizen journalists to post and blog from nearly any location, the importance of maintaining journalistic integrity cannot be forgotten. WMN hopes to maintain that integrity while providing compelling global articles, directly from their source.

Let us know if there is any Kickstarter campaigns that you think NMR would find interesting in the comments below. Also here is a successfully funded mech warfare robot arena. Yes, I know, it’s incredible.